Network services, such as informational services, digital goods providers, and e-commerce services, may utilize display pages (e.g., web pages) that provide relevant information to the service's users. For example, a news service may provide a display page detailing each item of available news. As a further example, an e-commerce service may provide display pages describing products or services that are available from the e-commerce site.
Display pages may include a variety of content types, such as text, images, sound and video. In general, content of a display page is described within a display page file, which may be transferred to a user's computing device prior to output of the content. Illustratively, a display page file may be written in a markup language, such as hypertext markup language (HTML). A display page file may include a subset of the content of a display page (e.g., text), while including links or pointers to other content (e.g., images, sound and/or video). Accordingly, in order to output a display page, a user's computing device may be required to make individual requests for both a display page file (e.g., an HTML document) and any additional content referenced within the display page file.
Generally, the speed at which a computing device can output a display page may be dependent at least in part on the number of requests for content which are required by a display page file. For example, a display page file which references hundreds of items of additional content may load significantly slower than a display page file which references only a single item of additional content. Due to inefficiencies caused by each request, this outcome may occur even where the total size of additional content is the same.